Mongo Nation

Guitar Hero for girls, pretty much

By Jeremy Azevedo

The first thing you’ll notice when you boot up Band Hero on your Xbox 360, PS3, Nintendo Wii or (if you’re poor) PS2, is that it’s pretty much the exact game as Guitar Hero 5. Except for everything is pink and purple, and all of the once familiar characters are now wearing hair gel and sweater vests.

More specifically, it’s like Guitar Hero 5 from an alternate dimension, where music games are made by and for girls instead of overweight, bearded metal dudes.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the song list. I’ll highlight all the songs that I, as a heterosexual male, find intolerable but that your girlfriend will probably think are “cute!” and/or “fun!”

3 Doors Down - When I’m Gone
The Airborne Toxic Event - Gasoline
The All-American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret
Alphabeat - Fascination
Aly & AJ - Like Whoa
Angels & Airwaves - The Adventure
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Steal My Kisses
Big Country - In A Big Country
The Bravery - Believe
Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me (Live)
Cold War Kids - Hang Me Up To Dry
Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On
Counting Crows - Angels Of The Silences
Culture Club - Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down
David Bowie - Let’s Dance
Devo - Whip It
Don McLean - American Pie
Duffy - Warwick Avenue
Duran Duran - Rio
Evanescence - Bring Me To Life
Everclear - Santa Monica
Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We’re Going Down
Filter - Take A Picture
Finger Eleven - Paralyzer
The Go-Go’s - Our Lips Are Sealed
Hilary Duff - So Yesterday
Hinder - Lips of An Angel
Jackson 5 - ABC
Janet Jackson - Black Cat
Jesse McCartney - Beautiful Soul
Joan Jett - Bad Reputation
Joss Stone - You Had Me
Katrina And The Waves - Walking On Sunshine
The Kooks - Naive
KT Tunstall - Black Horse & The Cherry Tree
The Last Goodnight - Pictures Of You
Lily Allen - Take What You Take
Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Impression That I Get
N.E.R.D. - Rockstar
Nelly Furtado - Turn Off The Light
No Doubt - Don’t Speak
No Doubt - Just A Girl
OK Go - A Million Ways
Papa Roach - Lifeline
Parachute - Back Again
Pat Benetar - Love is A Battlefield
Poison - Every Rose Has It Thorns
Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue - Kids
The Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Woman
Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman
Santigold - L.E.S. Aristes
Snow Patrol - Take Back The City
Spice Girls - Wannabe
Styx - Mr. Roboto
Taylor Swift - Picture To Burn
Taylor Swift - Love Story
Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me
Tonic - If You Could Only See
The Turtles - Happy Together
Village People - YMCA
Yellowcard - Ocean Avenue

So you see, this leaves only about 10-15 songs that you won’t totally hate playing, because they are, at the very least, good karaoke songs. But they certainly aren’t going to offer veterans any sort of challenge on guitar or drums, that’s for goddamn sure. Wanna play bass on the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe”? No? How about drums on Aly & AJ’s “Like Whoa”? Didn’t think so. Read the rest of this entry →

We talk to Freestyle Games Art Director Jamie Jackson

We joined Duke Ferris of GameRevolution at the E3 Judge’s Event for an early look at some of the most exciting titles to be shown at this year’s event. One of the most polarizing titles to be shown this year was DJ Hero, a game that aims to take hold of the millions of consumers that have been musically alientaed by the Guitar Hero/Rock Band fad over the last few years. We talked to Jamie Jackson, the Art Director at Freestyle Games about the new DJ controller, and the impact the game is expected to have on B-Boys worldwide. Check out the video here:

Ghostbusters canceled? Aerosmith selling? Jet Grind Radio returns?

By Ted Hucklebuck

Activision is unloading tons of Sierra published properties from their release schedule, some of which are real shockers. On the cutting room floor, but not necessarily gone for good are Ghosbusters (WHAT?!) and Brutal Legend (YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME). Nooooooooo! Say it ‘aint so!

The Bourne franchise has officially been offloaded, and Wet (which was starting to look really good, too), some game called Zombie Wranglers and the latest Chronicles of Riddick, World in Conflict, Leisure Suit Larry and 50 Cent games are all totally shit-canned for now.

What games survived the culling? Prototype, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. Seriously? The official motherf**king sequel to Ghostbusters cut in exchange for Crash Bandicoot?! Unbelievable. Someone better pick these titles up soon before we miss out on some really great games. Except for 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. That one’s just retarded. It’s like 50 Cent and his “homies” killing terrorists in Iraq or something. I swear I did not just make that up.

What kind of world is this in which a game like Brutal Legend not a publisher’s first priority?

In other news, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith inexplicably sold over 1 bajillion copies, despite the fact that no one has given a crap about Aerosmith for at least 100 years. This has prompted Activision (them again?) to jack themselves off publicly over all the bands that are now going to have their own Guitar Hero editions in the future, like Metallica and Van Halen. Because if there’s anything people don’t like, it’s variety, right guys? This sort of thing should be downloadable content at best, not stand alone games. Amirite?

Lastly, word on the street is that Sega is going to be developing a new Jet Grind Radio game for the Wii. For those of you who are not smart enough to know this already and need to be told, Jet Grind Radio for the Dreamcast is one of the best games ever made, and there hasn’t been a sequel of any kind in forever. This is great news for Wii owners that have nothing to play but lame ports of PS2 games and ugly, offline stepbrother versions of Xbox 360 and PS3 games.